


never look away

by konahau (naheka)



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Bathroom Sex, F/M, Getting Together, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Post-Olympics, Sexual Roleplay, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 02:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naheka/pseuds/konahau
Summary: Scott and Tessa play a game. It escalates quickly.





	never look away

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a couple of things you should know before reading this:
> 
> 1.) I have no idea where anything is geographically and I did not do any research. That's where they are, where their houses or possibly apartments are, how long it takes to get between all of those places. Suspend all geographical disbelief.
> 
> 2.) Big thanks go to idontneedtobeforgiven for helping me by reading this over multiple times, but otherwise has no beta and I'm positive there are typos and other grammar or weird errors. If you find any and let me know, I'll be very grateful and quick to fix.
> 
> 3.) this is mostly porn and it's porn that also requires suspension of disbelief

“If I were going to marry you,” Scott says, “I would ask in front of a huge crowd. There’s no way you’d say no.”

“I could say no,” Tessa mumbles, slumped down into his couch and trying not to think too hard about the last time Scott had the upholstery cleaned. Probably never. “You don’t know me.”

She hears the rustle of the candy bag, and the clack of the sweets against his teeth. “Please,” he says, slightly muffled through half-melted sour chews. “You’re such a people pleaser. No way you’d risk a crowd turning against you.”

If Tessa wasn’t Tessa, she’d tell him to fuck off. She thinks about it, how delighted he’d be to get such a rise out of her, how the word would feel on her tongue. Grown enough to have retired from one career already and it’s still thrilling, strong language late at night. She sticks her tongue out instead, playfully snaps her teeth at him when he reaches over to tweak her nose. He _tsks_ at her. “Don’t you have your own couch to inhibit?”

“Inhabit,” she corrects absently. 

“Inuit,” he counters, and then grins so big, so proud of himself.

“That’s culturally insensitive.”

He slumps onto her, flopping dramatically into her lap and pressing his face into her belly. “Well we are Canadian,” he reminds her, and she laughs before she can help herself.

“Ssh, they’ll take your golden maple leaf away.” She cards her fingers through his hair, lazy and sleepy and indulgent, takes an easy pull from the beer bottle on the side table beside her. He sits up to grab the wineglass and drain it, leaning his cheek on her shoulder. She’s drinking beer and Scott’s drinking wine, because he walked into the room gleefully holding her wine over his head and made the mistake of throwing down a gauntlet. No one who completes at the level they do could ever accept such a defeat. So they’re both drinking drinks they don’t even really like, Scott taking too big swallows and Tessa too small. But enough that the room is pleasantly floaty, her head pleasantly foggy. “The tv’s too loud,” she complains.

He hides his face in her neck. “Turn it off, then.” His lips brush her skin when he talks and she shivers a little. She fumbles at the remote and the channel flips; a woman moans at camera, lips pursed and underwear barely there. A throaty voice advertises a pay-by-the-minute number and Tessa yelps, the remote falling from her fingers as she tries to change it again.

Scott snickers uncontrollably into her chest, his chin digging into the top of her bralette. “Oh T-Bone,” he says, pitching his voice high and breathy, “you--”

She flicks his temple before he can finish whatever it is he was going to say. He turns his head, rabbit-quick, and nips the tip of her fingers. Her fingerpads brush the roof of his mouth, the ridges and the bumps, his tongue on her knuckle. “Gross,” she says, but can’t hide the way her voice wobbles. She wipes his spit across his cheek with a shaky grimace. “Moir cooties.”

“Girls love the Moir Cootie,” he says, and snuggles back into her lap, his head between her legs on the couch, his breath fluttering against the thin fabric of her shorts. It can’t be comfortable, his spine not aligned, his body flopped over at an odd angle. But he sighs, wiggles a little, mumbles her name. Snores into the crease of her thigh.

 

They wake up slumped into each other. Scott’s eyes are bright and eager; Tessa’s are gritty and unfocused, her mouth an unhappy line at the feeling of early morning sun on her face. Her tongue tastes like sleep and cheap beer and there’s a crick in her neck and if Scott half-sings _good morning, gooood morniiiing_ at her even once she’ll beat him to death with his own goddamn cheer. 

“Coffee,” he murmurs, gently sliding out of her lap and smoothing at her ponytail, easing the tension at her hairline. The offer appeases her enough she lets him leave the couch alive. 

++

And yet later, in the car: she thinks about his face, just there. His cheek on her thigh, her fingers in his mouth. How he did pink a little in his cheeks when the girl on the television moaned, even if he hid it well under a laugh. If he’d blush the same for her if she said his name just so.

++

Tessa is alone. There’s a cottage on a lakefront and Scott always makes noises about fishing or roughshod skating but he’s never been to visit and she almost likes it that way. So much is Scott-and-Tessa, Virtue-and-Moir. But here she is tucked away from roads and cameras and she packs her bags with books instead of skates and cooks shitty food because she’s a shitty cook and eats it out on the porch under the setting sun and watches the stars emerge, until the mosquito repellant candles burn down low and sputter out and she’s shivery under the blanket. She listens to the owls hoot and the crickets sing and watches the clouds roll over the moon.

Scott texts her: fuzzy pictures of things he thinks she’d like, run on sentence paragraphs of well wishes from people he meets, three in the morning bursts of artistic genius for the next tour. Decadent dessert descriptions from outside bakery windows. Heart emojis because he knows she likes them. 

She calls on the third day, close to midnight. “If we hadn’t met,” she says when he picks up, cutting off his _Tessa?_. He always greets her by her full name; it throws her off. So she talks over him, knows he won’t mind. “If we hadn’t met, you’d be a hockey player.”

He’s quiet for a few beats. The buzzing of the cicadas rises and falls. “If we hadn’t met,” he answers in kind, “you’d be a ballerina.”

She smiles up at the moon. “Fake front teeth and bloody knuckles.”

“Cigarettes and diet cokes.”

She hums, pleased. “Say hi to your mom for me?”

“I miss you,” he answers. After he hangs up she sends him a heart emoji. 

The night is loud and quiet at the same time. Louder than she thought it ever could be, a city girl used to car sounds and people arguing in the distance. And quiet with the sense that she’s alone, except for the birds and the bees.

Her phone buzzes where it’s resting on her hip and she holds it up, backlit by the stars. Scott’s name, and underneath: the ballerina emoji bracketed by two hockey sticks. 

++

She reads six books and finds herself spending more time feeling the heft of them then thinking of the pages inside. Tracing her nails down the spines and listening to that first crack as she opens them. Reading the dedications over and over again and thinking about her book deal. Scott’s will be easy, she thinks. To Ilderton Ontario and the Moir Clan. Hers should be easy too. Her mother, Jordan, Marie and Patch, their teammates. Their choreographers, their therapists, their doctors, their medics, B2ten, their sponsors, their business partners, their costumers, their set specialists, their publicists, the media team, the make up artists, the trainers--

She sets her books aside and listens to music instead, whole albums in one sitting, watching the wind ripple across the water.

++

She drives into town to brunch with her sister. They chat about boys, and the Olympics, and their mother’s latest date. “Do you think,” Jordan muses, while they watch a waiter top off their bottomless mimosas, “that you and Scott will still be stuck at the hip in four years?”

She’d asked the same question after Sochi and Tessa had said _yes_ too vehemently, almost challenging. She’d been right, but she remembers the quiet pity in her sister’s eyes and her awkward topic change. Four years later again and the _yes_ is on the tip of her tongue. “I don’t know,” she says, after a pause that is too long. She fumbles for her flute and drains the drink dry in a few swallows, lifting a finger to flag down another. “I--we’re best friends.”

“Of course,” Jordan says, and changes the subject neatly. Gracefully, Tessa thinks. Look at what they’ve both learned in four years time.

They’re too old to have a stepfather, they agree, and split the check down the middle after a tussle. Tessa drinks three more mimosas, another while Jordan is in the bathroom. When she stands to leave she wobbles.

++

There’s a wine cellar at her cottage. More of a pantry that she keeps wine in than a proper cellar, but she’s a little bit of a collector at heart. She likes to see her collection grow, carefully select one bottle out of many, drink a glass or to and return it to its rightful place. 

After brunch she stands in the doorway and thinks about Sochi, and Pyeongchang, and retirement. About business and fashion and coaching and touring. About going back to school. About how small towns make her feel small.

She drinks two bottle dry and falls asleep fully clothed on the couch.

++

She wakes up half past noon, cracks a fresh bottle of wine to chase her headache away. Three glasses in she realises her phone is against her ear and the line is ringing.

“Tessa,” Scott answers. “You miss me that much already?”

“Um,” Tessa says. 

There’s rustling across the line, muffled conversation. “--me a few minutes,” Scott is saying to someone, and the sounds of his boots across gravel, the thump of the car door. “Hey, sorry. You caught leaving the rink. What’s up?”

“Right, the rink,” Tessa says, and stalls out again. “I, uh.” She considers flinging her phone into the lake and dealing with the consequences later.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah. I--butt dial. I butt dialed you.” She forces a laugh and winces when it comes out wrong, too high pitched and wavering. “Sorry.”

He’s silent for a second. “Are you sure--”

“Are you having fun?” she interrupts. “With the junior skaters, I mean.”

“Yeah,” he answers, his voice hesitant and cautious but growing stronger as he gets going. “They’re a little bit rough but I think I can smooth them out before Patch gets back. They’re good kids--Lisa’s got that same thing I did when we were fourteen, remember my twizzles? Barely better now, but I’ve got a few tips to pass on.”

Tessa listens to him talk. Listens to the pride in his voice, the excitement. Remembers when he said _I guess I could… coach_ in his room in Sochi, their silver medals still around their necks, feeling lost and unmoored and not good enough. “Do you remember,” she asks, interrupting his retelling of how someone almost dropped someone else because of a flying something. She never used to be this bad at listening to people talk, but this whole conversation feels like it’s happening underwater. “Do you remember when you told me to drop out of school?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, thinking way back. “You mean when we were kids?”

“I was a kid,” Tessa reminds him. “You were legally an adult.”

“Yeah, I remember. One of the many times in our relationship you should have hauled off and socked me.”

“Why did you say that?”

Scott snorts. “Because I was a huge asshole, Tess, c’mon. Not that I don’t owe you an apology for that one but it was over ten years ago, what’s bringing it up now?”

“Nothing,” she says, “I don’t know.”

She can hear him frowning at her. “You need me to come up and save you from all that sunbathing, Virtch? Because I can make that sacrifice.” HIs voice is light but even in her slightly foggy state she can feel how forced it is.

“No,” she says, “shit, I’m sorry.”

“Cursing; you must really be in a bad way.” His tone is less forcibly light now, and more openly worried. 

“I had brunch with Jordan,” Tessa says, her brain finally starting to fire on a few cylinders. The reasoning comes to her in a flash. “Bottomless mimosas.”

“Ahh,” Scott says, and she can see it, the way he’d relax back into his seat, his fingers unclenching from where they were wrapped around his keys, ready to turn the engine over and put his foot on the gas and not take it off until he’d confirmed she’s alright. “Tipsy T-Bone, eh? I like it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get smug. No one’s caught me on camera shouting at a referee.”

“I kind of thought the Japanese karaoke was more impressive,” he jokes back cheerfully. “Sleep it off, kiddo.”

She hums in acknowledgement.

He speaks again before she can say her goodbyes. “Hey. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Worrywart,” she says, and then lingers on the line. All her favourite nicknames in a row, in Scott’s familiar voice. She feels more settled on the phone with him than she has in days. She takes another drink from her glass. “I thought about you the other night.”

“Scandalous.”

“Hockey you,” she clarifies. “I think hockey you would have a tattoo.”

He laughs, warm and solid and delighted. “A heart with ‘mom’ inside?”

“Obviously.”

“I might have that one already,” he teases, “somewhere you’ve never seen.”

It would literally have to be on his penis, Tessa thinks absently. They’ve shared too many tight quarters and costume fittings and drunken stumblings otherwise. “And my name.”

His breath catches. “Your--your name?”

“Yes,” she decides. “You’d have a huge crush on me. Ballerina-me is very famous.”

“Of course,” he agrees seriously, hopping over his initial hiccup to land in sync with her. “I’d show it to the camera after every goal I score in the hopes that you’re somewhere watching. Tattoo my number underneath.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Tessa informs him. “Please don’t be so stupid in our fantasy.” She yawns. “I’m gonna nap.”

He laughs again. “Give me a few hours to think up something good, huh? Call me back before dinner?”

“Okay,” she agrees, and falls asleep cradling the wine bottle, her phone warm against her cheek.

++

When Tessa was little, she lived in her head. That’s what it said on her very first report card, underneath the handwritten notes of how well she skipped rope and her natural rhythm in the weekly music class. In between her good marks for writing her letters and the observation that she’s a natural people pleaser. She lives in her head, her teacher thought, and her mom scoffed and kissed her forehead and said _what’s wrong with that?_

++

 

“I would get us on the same morning radio show,” Scott has decided, hours and hours later.

Tessa yawns, her jaw cracking. The ringing of her phone had woken her. She rolls over and rubs her cheek against the fabric of the sofa. “It took you three hours to come up with ‘morning radio show’? When’s the last time you saw a ballerina on a radio show?”

“You don’t see radio, you hear it. And in our fantasy land we’re both on the radio. Roll with it.”

 _our fantasy_ shouldn’t make her stomach jump, but it does. “Okay, we’re both on Good Morning Canada, the primetime morning radio show. Does radio have primetime?”

“Shush,” Scott says impatiently, “I’m still talking. So we end up on the radio show, and obviously the host asks about my tattoo of your name.”

Tessa takes a leisurely sip straight from the bottle. “Obviously.”

“So I go down on one knee--the host screams but in an excited way, not an ax murderer way--and I ask you out. And you’re still Tessa, so you bow under the pressure of not disappointing all of Canada tuning in on their commute.” He makes a triumphant noise. “I win!”

“Your plan is to make me go out with you even if I don’t want to?”

Scott is quiet for a minute. “I… wait until the show’s on break and then ask if you like Italian?”

“Ballerina-me loves Italian.”

“The Moir charm never fails.”

Tessa hums, snuggling under a blanket and cracking another yawn, chased by a slow draw from the bottle. “Is that all you called to tell me?”

“I’m checking on you. You were supposed to call me back, remember?”

“I fell asleep.” Tessa rubs at her eyes, pulls her phone away to check the time. “Oh crap, sorry.”

“S’okay. I miss you, though.”

“I miss you too,” Tessa says, and it comes out automatic even though it’s the most sincere thing she’s said in days. “We should… do lunch?” That’s what adult friends do, she thinks. Catch up over lunch or drinks and comment on each other’s instagram posts.

“Absolutely,” he agrees immediately. “Monday? Come over to the rink and we can take one car?”

“Okay.”

They chitchat for another two minutes or so, and Tessa babbles a little towards the end, when she can feel Scott start to wrap things up. Eventually they both go quiet, unwilling to say goodbye. This is what adult friends do, Tessa thinks, and doesn’t know why it makes her feel nauseous. 

“I’m going to sign up for dance class,” she blurts.

“Oh?”

“Yea,” she says, feeling more sure as she goes on, even if she’d never thought about it before. “Ballet, maybe. Or contemporary… hip hop.”

“Overachiever,” Scott teases, voice fond. “You sure it’s not… too much? You know we’ll start work on the tour soon. I’m surprised you haven’t already.”

Tessa feels a prickle of guilt. “No, you’re right, I just…” she trails off. “I don’t know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you wanting something for yourself.”

“I don’t need you to be my therapist,” Tessa snaps, and can tell she’s taken him aback. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“I know how you are when you wake up,” Scott jokes, but it falls flat. “Tess, maybe--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, cutting him off. “Sorry, I just--please?”

“Okay,” he allows. There’s another short lull. Tessa thinks: is this what adult friends do? Run out of things to say to each other and waffle around in awkward silence until someone bites the bullet and never texts back. The thought makes her stomach churn. She realizes Scott is talking. “--see you on Monday?”

“I don’t know,” she balks suddenly. She feels flushed, panicky. “I uh. No, I’m busy. Rain check?”

“What? We just agreed--”

“I’m not feeling well.”

“Tessa, what the hell is going on with you?”

“I think I might visit my sister, that’s all.”

She can hear his jaw grinding. “I’m coming over.”

“What? Scott, that’s crazy. We’ll see each other next week, so I think--”

“We’re getting lunch tomorrow, or I’m coming over now.” 

Tessa grinds her own teeth together. “Fine. Tomorrow.”

“And if you don’t show, I’m coming over.”

“Creepy,” Tessa snipes.

“I can call Marie instead, if you prefer.”

Tessa grimaces. “Tomorrow.” She pauses vindictively. “I want pierogies..” She ends the call before he can protest, tossing the phone next to her on the sofa and scrubbing her hands over her face. She doesn’t dry heave, but it’s near thing.

Her phone buzzes. _I’ll see you tomorrow._ Two food emojis and a heart. Because he knows I like them, she thinks, even when she’s just turned on a dime and snapped his head off. She pours a glass of wine and chugs it; dry heaves, just once. Nothing comes up though, and if it isn’t a big victory it’s not a small one either.

++

She goes early to the rink, just to sneak in and watch him for a minute before he notices her in the stands. He falters when he sees her, and she awkwardly lifts a hand up in a half-wave. He smiles, tentative but real, and she walks down the boards as he skates over. “Coaching suits you.”

He shrugs. “It’s fun for now, but I’m not ready for it yet. A lot of touring left for us to do, eh?”

His comment, offhand but so clearly sincere, settles her in a way she doesn’t expect, the tension bleeding out of her shoulders. “I’m sorry about the phonecall.”

He tilts his head at her. “A bad day?”

“I guess.”

“I’m the emotional one,” he reminds her. “I guess you can try it on once in a while if you really want to, though.”

“It’s _exhausting_ ,” Tessa says truthfully. “How do you do it?”

He throws his head back in a laugh and drags her in for a hug, leaning over the boards to rub his sweaty cheek against hers while she giggles and pushes him away, her fingers in his hair. “Are you really going to make me eat pierogies,” he asks, muffled against her neck. “You know I can’t since The Harrowing Incident of 2009.”

“I don’t know if frozen potato dumplings and an entire bottle of peppermint schnapps can really count as a capital letter incident.”

“Quiet,” he says, covering her mouth. “You were young, and innocent--”

She yanks at his elbow. “And twenty--”

“Shhh,” he insists. “Let’s not speak of the dark times.” He makes hopeful puppy eyes at her. “And maybe speak of nacho fries?”

Tessa pulls a face. “Burgers?”

“Compromise accepted.” He fishes in his pocket for his keys and hands them over. “Give me a few to wrap up and grab my stuff. Get the heat going?”

 

Tessa remembers when Scott’s car was drowning in old hockey pads and sweaty t-shirts, old receipts and pencaps. She huddles herself into door and turns the heat up all the way, blasting fresh pine scent from the air freshner tucked into the vents. One of his hoodies is draped over the driver’s seat and she pulls it on. . 

Scott joins her a few minutes later. “Hey. Burgers?”

“Mmhm.” She tucks her nose into the neckline. His aftershave, his bodywash. The lingering faintness of her body lotion. “The place with the curly fries?”

He waggles his eyebrows. “A fry day? I love fry days.” He winks. “Fry-day. Get it? I love Fridays.”

“It’s Monday.”

He turns the engine over. “You’ll be more fun once you’ve got some curly fries in you.”

 

Outside the restaurant, he goes to hold the door open and then boggles at her. She looks down at herself. “Is there a bug on me?”

“That’s my hoodie.”

“Oh.” She shoves the sleeves up her arms. “Yeah. I was cold.”

He’s still staring. 

“You want me to take it off?”

“No,” he says quickly. “No, of course not.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I. Um. I need to go to the bathroom. Get us a table?”

“Sure,” Tessa says, and he’s off before she can finish the word, leaving her blinking after him. “I need a drink.”

 

She’s genuinely considering going to look for him in the men’s room when he slides next to her at the bar. “Tessa Virtue,” he says, with faux shock. “The world famous ballerina? Such a coincidence, running into you so soon after our radio show.”

Tessa laughs. Twenty years, and every stupid joke he makes cracks her up. “If it isn’t Scott Moir,” she teases back, “the North American famous... goaltender?”

He lifts a hand at the bartender, points at her white wine, flashes two fingers. “That just tells me you haven’t seen me play. And hockey’s big in other places too, you know.”

“Admitting a lack of knowledge,” Tessa sighs as their drinks arrive, “a rookie mistake.”

“Or a very clever opening. Get me talking about myself, score some free box seats for my next match.”

Tessa drains one glass and accepts the second from Scott’s hand, their fingers brushing. “You caught me. I love hockey but I hate ticket prices.”

“There’s easier ways to get me sweaty,” he says, and winks comically big.

It’s be easy, Tessa knows. Easy to dissolve into giggles and punch his shoulder and demand he stop practicing cheesy bar lines on her, hop off her bar stool and walk arm in arm with him to a booth and cram too many fries into her mouth while he does his impression of Marina horrified at her table manners. It’s what she should do, it’s what makes sense to do. It’s what he expects.

So she doesn’t know why she drops her voice just half an octave and looks at him up through her lashes and murmurs, “Is that so?”

He inhales, deep and slow; doesn’t look away as she sips her drink. “It is.”

She can feel her hummingbird heart fluttering in her chest. “What kind of girl do you think I am, Mr. Moir?”

“Well I don’t know, Miss Virtue,” he drawls. “But I’d sure like to find out.” He leans in, so close she can feel his exhale on her cheek, his hip against the edge of the bar, one of his feet nudging between hers. They’ve been closer. Been more intimately touching, even. Alone. At practice. Onstage or on ice in front of hundreds of thousands of people. 

She tilts her chin up. On the bartop, her fingertips touch the back of his hand, the dips between his knuckles. “Very forward for a man who hasn’t asked me on a date yet.”

“I’m making an impression,” Scott says, and starts to close the distance between them. “You like pasta, right?”

“Excuse me, miss?”

Tessa starts. Scott freezes, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. “Um,” she manages, turning to face the hostess. “... yes?”

“Your table is ready.”

“Right. Yes! Sorry.” She grabs Scott by the elbow. “Curly fries.”

“Curly fries,” he recovers, with a weak laugh. “We were just killing time at the bar, you know. Been together twenty years, you know how it is. Gotta play stupid games or we’d kill each oth--”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Tessa announces, and flees like the coward she is.

“Curly fries,” Scott says weakly to the waitress.

 

By the time she returns to the table, they’re both ready to pretend the entire encounter never happened. “Are you gonna stick around?” Scott asks her after their food arrives. “Like for a few days, I mean.”

Tessa pushes her salad around with her fork. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe back to the cottage.”

He frowns. “All by yourself?”

“Why? You wanna come?”

“Don’t be like that.” He sneaks a crouton off her place. “Just don’t like the idea of you all alone for such a long time.”

Tessa flags a waitress down. “Can I get another Merlot? Thanks.”

Scott is still watching her, his brow still furrowed. “And I don’t think I love all of that, either.”

Tessa drops her fork. “Scott, c’mon. You know I’ll stop all of it once we start training again. You’re the one who told me I could use a vacation.”

“So vacation here. I’ll keep you company when you need company and leave you alone when you need Tessa Time.”

Tessa makes a show of looking at her watch. Scott throws a pickle chip at her.

“Don’t be like that,” he repeats. “Here, you need carbs.” He tries to handfeed her a bite of his sandwich.

“I had fries,” she protests, but she’s smiling again. “Dork.”

“Lush,” he shoots back, and steals her wineglass while she’s distracted. “Aha! I win.”

“Oh no, the only wineglass in this restaurant. I’ve been thoroughly thwarted.”

He waggles his sandwich at her. “Bread or you’re cut off.”

Ridiculous, Tessa thinks, taking a bite of BLT on wheat. An utterly ridiculous man. “Fine. I need another weekend, and then--well we have a lot of work to do. An early start wouldn’t hurt.”

“Work Tessa,” Scott says. He bites his sandwich right over where she’d bitten it. “I like it.”

++

He calls her the next night. “I miss you.”

“You saw me yesterday.”

“That was _yesterday_.”

Tessa smiles into the phone, muting the television with her free hand. “How was coaching today?”

“Took the day. Slept in, made eggs.”

Tessa makes an offended noise. “Without me?”

“Scrambled, not poached.” She can hear a fork scraping against a plate. “You do it better.”

A lie, Tessa knows, but it’s a nice one. She cracks her neck. In her pajamas at just barely half past eight, she’s practically twenty nine going on sixty. Scott likes fun girls, she thinks. Girls that want to go out dancing and woop out the window of fast driving cars. She stifles a yawn into her hand. “Talk to me,” she says, because he’s not out with his teenage dream girls, he’s eating eggs off a real plate and talking to his skating partner on the phone.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Tessa flops back onto the sofa and stares up at the ceiling, scratching idly at her hipbone. “I don’t know. You’re the extrovert.”

“Not when it’s just us.”

She stifles a yawn into her palm. “Tell me a bedtime story.”

“It’s not even nine,” he teases, but then hums thoughtfully. “I was thinking about our pasta date.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, from the radio show. Ballerina Tessa.”

“Oh,” Tessa says, “right. Hockey Scott.”

“Our pasta date,” Scott continues. “I’m thinking Olive Garden.”

Tessa laughs so long her belly hurts, curled up with her legs dangling over the edge of the sofa cushion. “NHL bucks and your best game is Olive Garden?”

“We ate there once, remember? In Calgary.”

Tessa remembers. He’d wanted to cheer her up her post boyfriend blues with carbohydrates and heavy cream, didn’t know the breakup had been just one more fight about the way they moved together on the ice. The way they moved against each other on the ice. He taught her how to blow paper napkin spitballs through plastic straws and they ate breadsticks until they could barely move. 

“Ballet Tessa is classy,” she tells him loftily. “Ballet me wants fine dining.”

“Okay, fine. Hockey Scott can spring for a steakhouse. Get Ballerina Tessa a twenty dollar two leaf salad, hold the dressing.”

“It’s date night,” Tessa teases, “light dressing on the side.”

“Croutons?”

“Don’t talk crazy.”

Scott laughs. “Okay and I’ll get a salad too. Solidarity.”

“Hockey you likes salad?”

“Hockey me wants to impress ballerina you.”

“Well I’d be impressed,” Tessa says, and only realizes when Scott pauses that she didn’t modify it, didn’t make it clear it’s some other version of themselves they’re playing make believe with. She weighs the pros and cons of faking her death and moving to Australia.

“Good,” Scott says, just when she’s going to apologize or maybe hang up and google studio apartments in Australia. “I didn’t make reservations at the swankiest restaurant in Ontario for nothing.”

“WIth how famous you are? They set aside a table every night just hoping you’ll drop in.”

She can hear Scott preening on the other end of the phone. “You’re right, I am just that good.”

Tessa hums, pleased she’s kept up her end of the game. “It sounds like a good first date.”

“Good enough for a kiss?”

Tessa’s breath catches. She swallows, deliberately keeps her voice light. “And I’ll ask you again: what kind of girl do you think I am?”

“You haven’t heard the rest of our date yet. A walk along the river.”

“Which river?”

“A pretty one. Don’t interrupt.”

Tessa splays her palm over her belly and tickles her nails across her skin, curling her toes idly at the wave of pleasant tingles it produces. “Sorry, sorry. Tell me about our river walk.”

“It’s lit up, you know how it can be? LIke at Christmas. Lights reflecting on the water. I lend you my jacket when you shiver.”

Tessa shivers. Her voice comes out soft. “What a gentleman.”

“I am, when it counts. And you make it count.” Scott’s voice dips low, and then lower. “A gentleman all the way home.”

“A flirt, too.”

“I told you I had game. I’d walk you all the way to your front door and insist you keep my hoodie.”

“You took me to a fancy restaurant in a hoodie?”

“You found it charming.”

Tessa’s voice husks. “Did I?”

“I hope so.”

“I like that you leave it with me,” Tessa murmurs, and the very tips of her fingers slip beneath the waistband of her sleep shorts. 

“Yeah?”

“Mmhhm. Because it smells like you.”

Scott’s inhale is so ragged she can hear it. “Would you sleep in it? That night?”

Tessa slides her hands fully under her shorts, curls her fingers around her hips right where she likes to be held while she gets fucked. Remembers how his eyes got wide when he saw her in his clothes. “Would you want me too?”

“Yes. Every night until our second date.”

“So sure you’d get one?”

Scott’s voice drawls, gone cocky and smirky. She’s heard it aimed at his girlfriends and his one night stands, the girls he flirts with at bars and parties. “With you sleeping in my clothes I’d pick you up three nights later.”

“Another salad?”

“No. I’d cook for you.”

Tessa giggles, almost breaking the mood. “Scrambled eggs?”

He _tsks_. “Make fun all you want, but it’s you at my fancy penthouse apartment with a glass of wine in hand; I’m halfway to home base.”

“You’ll be rounding it solo if you keep up the metaphors.”

“No sports talk,” he agrees. “Just a medium rare filet and Mama Moir’s world famous cheesy potatoes.”

“Scalloped.”

“No, that’s snails.”

Tessa giggles again. “No it’s not.”

“No,” he agrees, and she can hear the smile in his words. “But it’s that charm that makes you agree to a nightcap.”

“Wine?”

“Bourbon. The good stuff, too. Fifty dollars a finger.”

 _A finger_ , Tessa’s mind echoes. She runs a thumb across herself, splays her legs a little bit wider. Closes her eyes. “I like a good bourbon.”

“I know,” Scott says, and his voice husks. It’s another blurring of the lines, and she should call attention to it, stop it, apologize for starting them down this path. Instead she brushes her thumb across her clit again, and then again. “Dark bourbon,” Scott continues, “A lucky guess.”

“A good guess,” she whispers, and hitches one leg up on the back of the sofa. It’s a sprawled, lewd position, and not one she’d let anyone ever see her in. But no one is here and it’s not even her doing it, not really. Not if she doesn’t think too hard about it. “When do you kiss me?”

“You kiss me,” Scott corrects. “I mean, it’s obvious I want to, but I wait. I want to make sure you don’t feel pressured, make sure you want me.”

Just one fingertip, just the promise of pressure at her slick wet entrance. “I want you.”

 _Jesus_ , she hears him whisper, and her heart stutters. But then he says: “You kiss me in the kitchen, when the dishes are soaking.”

“On my tiptoes?”

“No--those heels---the red ones, with the buckles and pointy toes. You’re in those.”

Tessa touches her upper thighs, the inner crease where they meet her hips. Soft and just a little bit damp, the fading indentations of the pattern of the sofa cushions. “The red dress,” she offers. “From the gala in Edmonton.”

“Jesus,” Scott says, very clearly this time. “Yes, that dress.”

“You’re in the blue button up,” she asks in return. “With the silver stripes on the collar?”

“Yes,” he agrees quickly, “whatever you want.”

“I want you,” she repeats, and the noise he makes in response shoots straight through her. “Tell me what happens next.”

“I lift you up,” he answers immediately. “My penthouse has huge countertops.”

“Sounds cold.”

“It’ll heat up fast,” Scott gravels, and Tessa lets out a noise. It’s soft and low and not quite a moan, but she hears Scott suck in another ragged breath. “Where do you like to be kissed?”

“My neck. And--my collarbones.”

“Tell me.”

Tessa shudders. “Right on the bone, and under my jaw.”

“Teeth?”

Tessa thinks about seeing his marks on her skin the morning after. “ _Yes_.” One finger, slick and slow and pumping, and she vocalizes softly, a low noise in her throat. “Say my name.”

“Tessa,” Scott pants. “Tee, Jesus.”

“Tell me what happens next.”

“That red dress. I’ve been thinking about it all night, all through dinner.”

Two fingers, up to the knuckles, gently curled. Her leg bent on the sofa, foot braced for leverage. “Taking it off?”

“No, leave it on. I’ll flip up the uh, the bottom part--”

“Hem,” Tessa provides.

“Yeah, the hem. And you’re uh, you’re--” He falters. “Tessa,” he says, but it’s different than it was before. “I--”

“Black,” she says, before he can say _what are we doing?_ “Black silk lace, bikini cut. No bra.”

“You’re killing me,” Scott groans. 

Tessa can hear her blood roaring in her ears. “Kill me back.”

She hears the rustle of clothing from his end of the phone--his voice is briefly tinny and then clearer than ever. “I pull your dress up to your neck.”

Tessa rolls her hips, lazy and undulating and repeating. “With a cinch waist like that?”

“I rip it,” he growls, and she clenches involuntarily around her fingers. “I want my mouth on your chest.”

Tessa sneaks a hand up her t-shirt, cupping her own breast soft and then softer and then hard, tweaking the nipple. She tilts her head back and makes a wanton noise into the phone. 

“You like that?” he asks, and he’s almost hesitant, unsure.

“I’m wet down my wrist,” she says without thinking, and Scott makes an absolute wrecked noise in response. 

“There’s other places I want to put my mouth,” Scott continues before she can worry she’s gone too far. 

“Tell me.”

“Neck. And collarbones, just how you like it. Mark you up all over; lend you my scarf in the morning.”

Tessa’s hips thrust up harder against her fingers. She sounds breathless when she speaks. “You ripped my dress, I’ll have to take another.”

“They look better on you,” Scott swears. “Everything’s better on you. My shampoo will smell better on you. My bed will look better with you in it, eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“Not on the second date. I’d want to change the sheets, light candles. Flower petals and mood music and water bottles under the bed. A new pillow for under your head.”

Tessa makes a considering noise between her laboured breathing. “I think we can do better than missionary.”

Scott’s voice goes intent. “Can we?”

“Maybe. Depending on where else your mouth goes on the second date.”

“You know where I want it.”

Tessa arches her back, scores her nails down her chest to her belly and then to rub at her clit while her other hand thrusts between her legs. “Tell me.”

“Your cunt,” Scott whispers, like it’s a secret. The word shoots straight through her and she gasps, toes curling.

“Fuck,” she shudders, “ah--fuck.”

“You want that, baby?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I want that.”

“I’ll give it to you,” he promises, and he’s panting now too. “Anything you want, everything. It’s yours.”

Tessa whimpers. She can feel it rising, in her core. She feels flushed and slack and glassy and slick all the way down her thighs and up her wrist.

“Let me hear?” he asks, almost pleading. “I’m close, Tee, let me--”

If she was thinking clearly she’d be dying of mortification, but luckily there’s more endorphins singing in her blood than the first time they won Worlds; she’s come dumb and bold as brass because of it. She fumbles at her phone with slippery fingers, turning it on speaker. Then she holds it down between her legs, fucks herself with two fingers, screws her eyes shut, and thinks:

On the kitchen counter with her dress ripped and rucked up, legs splayed, Scott knelt between them. She knows exactly what it’d feel like to drag her fingers through his hair, past the crunch of spray and gel and down to the softness underneath. She doesn’t know what it’d feel like to have his tongue on her, feel his teeth bite down on her hipbones and know he’s breaking the capillaries under the skin, but she’s got a good imagination, apparently. Might as well put it to use thinking about his hands holding her down while he eats her out, her heels pressing into his back and her desperate rotating jerking of her hips as she comes on his face.

(And then again in his bed, ideally. She promised him something adventurous and she’s thinking that he can hold her weight and she can do the splits and the two of them together are nothing if not creative. His hips snapping against hers in a pace just this side of punishing, her nails raking down his back or clutching at the headboard while he takes her from behind.)

And he’s listening, she thinks. Listening to the obscene wet noises of her fingers inside her, the grinding of her clit on the jut of her wrist. Is he touching himself? Spitwet palm and shaky fingers? Does he like it a little bit tight and the touch of fingernails or soft and loose and fast. What would it feel like, to feel his body lock up and the hot spurt of his release on her fingers?

She comes like a freight train, barely able to drag her phone back up to her ear while she gasps for air and shudders her way through the aftershocks. She can hear him sounding very much the same, and for a few long minutes they just stay there together, until their breathing settles.

Oh, Tessa thinks, as her brain comes back online. Oh _shit_. She covers her mouth with her hand to muffle her noise of distress and finds that absolutely makes it worse, as it starkly reminds her what her fingers are covered in. 

Scott swallows so hard she can hear it. “Um.”

Summers in Australia are brutal, Tessa thinks, as her eyes well up and she fights down a sob. She’ll leave the flannel jeans in Canada. 

“There’s a bar,” Scott says, in a rush. “Or. A lounge, I guess. Near my place downtown. It’s--it’s classy. Dress code and all. I’ll send you the address?”

Tessa moves her hand from over her mouth. If they keep going, there’s no time to stop and realize how insane they’re acting. “Nine?”

“Yes,” Scott agrees immediately. “I--.” He stops. “Nine. Wear those heels we talked about.”

“I like you in blue,” Tessa responds in kind, and ends the call on his soft moaned noise in response. 

The she washes her hands, her face. Puts a towel down on the damp spot on the sofa and falls asleep in the bath. Very carefully doesn’t think a single thing about any of it. That way lies madness.

++

The lounge is as classy as Scott stammered it would be. And quiet, with secluded little booths tucked into corners, the entire place gently lit and ambient music just barely masking the low murmur of conversation. Her fingers slip on her clutch nervously and she taps her fingers on the bartop as she drains her first drink with a few swift swallows. She’s barely finished it when Scott arrives. She sees him in the doorway, grinning as he jokes around with the bouncer. His smile freezes when he sees her--red dress and matching heels; he’s ironed out his blue button up and he’s wearing a tailored suit she vaguely recognizes from somewhere.

“You’re early,” she says as he crosses the room, surprised. 

“I wanted to make an impression,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “You look incredible, by the way. Grab a booth? I’ll get a round.”

 

He brings her bourbon, expensive and neat and almost as dark as his eyes as he slides into the booth beside her. The tables are covered with long dark cloths and she dries her sweaty palms on them as his warm bulk settles next to her. “You wore the shoes I like.”

She arches an eyebrow at his own outfit. “No tie.”

“I look better on this side of casual.” He stretches an arm across the top of the booth, above her shoulders. “How was practice?”

“Practice?”

His eyes flicker. “Ballet practice.”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, of course.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, nervous again. Wets her tongue with her drink. “Same as always. And uh, your--rehearsal?”

His posture stiffens a little bit, his tone changes. “Tessa, if you don’t want to do this, we could--”

She touches his knee under the table and the words die on his tongue. She’d painted her nails earlier that evening, long slow sure strokes, a deep dark red, two coats and shiny lacquer on top. She drags the tips of them up his thigh, stops at the crease of his hip. “I don’t think I care about your hockey matches right now, to be honest.”

“Harsh,” Scott says, after a long pause. His fingers cover hers, and he lifts her hand up to kiss the center of her palm, then the inside of her wrist. “I like it.”

She slides closer and watches him watch the long slope of her neck and she smoothes her hair back over her shoulder, then puts her hand under the table again, this time on the buckle of his belt. His breath catches. “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” he manages, his throat working. 

“Good.” She slips a little lower, her fingers curling to run her knuckles along the length of him. 

He makes a choking noise. Tessa likes it. 

“Bourbon,” she comments, using her free hand to take another sip. 

His legs part to grant her more access. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.” She applies just a hint more pressure and his head tips back, his eyelashes flutter.

“Good,” he murmurs, and makes a soft noise that isn’t not a moan. “I dreamed about you, after.”

Tessa takes another sip, turning her hand over to palm him properly. “Did you.”

“You were in a tutu.”

The tab of his zipper is warm between her fingers. “Tell me.”

“You came to visit me, at the rink. After practice.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Mmhm,” he mutters. “Tee--”

She slides the zipper down. “What happened at the rink?”

“I taught you how to skate. Held your hand when you got wobbly.”

His boxers are soft against her fingertips; he’s hard underneath them. “Was I good at it?”

“A natural.”

Tessa hums, pleased. She likes this, she thinks. Likes being in charge. Likes the way he’s pliant beneath her touch, the way she can see his pulse beating in his throat and how his chest is rising and falling in quick sharp bursts. The flush rising in his cheeks and the way he can’t look away from her. 

“Tell me,” he says, and then his eyelids flutter when she touches skin to skin. Just the tip of one finger, but it’s enough to make him whimper. 

“Tell you what?”

Scott shudders. “Tell me what to do.”

She flicks her fingers lightly, the angle awkward and her access limited. “How about I tell you about what I did when I got here.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, as she strokes him. “Yeah. Whatever you want, please.”

“I went to the bathroom.” She removes her hand suddenly, and he whines slightly in protest. “This is a fancy place, just like you said. Very clean.” She leans in close--she wants a good look at him, the way she’s wrecked him with a few murmured sentences and the slightest bit of pressure from her fingers. There are indents in his lips from where he’s bitten at them to keep his noises soft, there’s sweat prickling at his hairline. 

“Tessa,” he says softly, like a prayer.

“The bathrooms are single stall.” She flickers a pointed look down at his crotch. “You should probably hold your jacket in front of yourself.”

She slips out of the booth, hoping she doesn’t wobble in her heels. She’s not unflushed herself, wet between her thighs and breathing hard underneath her shaky veneer of calm. But she makes it to the bathroom without melting into a puddle of nervousness or shame, and she’ll take it. She’s only just flicked the lights on when she feels hands on her hips, pushing her into the small room. The door closes behind the two of them and Scott turns her, crowding her up against the door. Her clutch drops to the ground; she can feel him hard against the small of her back.

“Tessa Virtue,” he murmurs, and licks a wet strip from the back of her neck up to behind her ear. “Next time it’ll be your turn.”

She braces one hand on the door and uses the other to reach behind her and pull him closer by his jacket. “Tell me.”

“I’m thinking about having you slip out of those bikini cut lacy panties at the table,” he whispers, and bites at her throat so hard her knees buckle. “Keep them in my pocket all through dinner. Feed you with one hand and keep you wet with the other.”

She shudders. “Maybe you should focus on the here and now,” she shoots back, and he bites her again. She hears his zipper again, the clink of his belt coming undone. He presses her chest up against the door and flips her dress up. 

“Shit,” he pants, his fingers teasing her while she presses her flushed cheek against the cool wood of the door. “Fuck, hold on.” His fingers slide out from between her thighs, and she can hear him fumbling with the foil of a condom. 

“Wait.” She reaches behind her, catching his wrist. “You don’t--I’m on the pill.” She tries for a weak smile over her shoulder. “Required for all professional ballerinas, you know.”

“ _Fuck_.” Scott hesitates. “Are you sure?”

She takes his fingers in her mouth. She can taste herself, and underneath: his skin, the salt of his sweat.

Scott curses again, and surges forward, lifting her up onto her toes as he pulls her panties to the side. His fingers thrust into her mouth, sliding across her tongue and teasing the back of her throat as she swallows around them. She can feel just the tip of him, the sticky wet slide of his precome smearing on her skin. He holds her still and rocks, just barely starting to stretch her open on the head of himself before sliding away again. Over and over, until she’s panting and trying to fuck herself back onto him. “Please--”

He enters her in one smooth glide, going halfway in, making her back arch and her eyes roll back in her head. “Sshh,” he whispers against her temple. “You can take it.”

“Take it,” she mumbles in a pleasured daze, her words hopelessly garbled around his fingers, his thumb holding her jaw closed around them. 

“That’s it.” He rocks again, then grinds against her ass. She melts, her muscles relaxing, and he slides all the way inside her, bottoming out with a gasp. “Just like that,” he encourages, and then starts moving. A hard snap of his hips followed by a long slow gyrating grind, repeated over and over, and then his thumb is at her clit and her knees go out completing from underneath her.

He catches her. Holds her up while she shudders and keens and comes, her head tipped back on his shoulder while he murmurs into her ear and doesn’t stop fingering at her clit until she flinches and whines and tries to squirm away. “Alright,” he murmurs. “Alright?”

“Yes,” she says, when she can speak again. She feels fawn legged, wobbly, but she takes her own weight again and braces against the door again. Fuck, how long have they been in here?

Scott is moving again, slow and easy and she realizes: he hasn’t come yet. He mumbles her name again, rocking her up on her toes with each thrust. “This counts as your turn,” Tessa whispers into the door. She can see the mirror of the sink out of the corner of her eye; they’ve fogged it up so much all she can see are two blurs, one dark and one red and both facesless and if that isn’t a metaphor. She closes her eyes against it. “My turn again next time,” she promises. “Would you want that?”

Scott leans his forehead into her back. “Yes,” he says, and she can feel his lips move against the top of her spine.

“Would you do anything I told you?”

“Yes.”

“Let me touch you everywhere I want to touch you?”

His hips stutter. “Please.”

“Anywhere?” Tessa asks, and when he lifts his head she looks at him as best she can over her shoulder. “Anything I want? How would your bed look with _you_ on your back in it?”

Scott freezes, his eyes wide and huge and shocked. She feels him come inside her.

They breathe hard for a minute, panting and gasping for air. Tessa’s clit is still throbbing periodically, and when Scott eases out of her his come drips down the inside of her left thigh in a wet trickle. He rips a few paper towels out of the dispenser and kneels behind her. “Let me.” He slides them up her legs, gently, and cups them around her sex, pressing lightly at her clit through the thin paper just to make her jolt a little. His pants are still down around his ankles and it should be ridiculous but it’s--it’s just Scott, and good if vaguely exhibitionist sex, and any minute she’s going to ruin the game.

I can have him, she thinks, like this. And as long as we keep moving forward, there’s no time to realize how terrible these decisions are. “I’ll wear my tutu next time,” she says, and smoothes her dress down. Ducks out of the bathroom before he can grab her, knows he can’t chase her until he’s done some cleanup of his own. Takes the fire exit into the alley and scurries into her car before anyone can see her.

She leans her head on the steering wheel. They’ve never kissed, she realized. So she really is that kind of girl “Fuck.”

++

She paces in her room the next night, chewing her thumbnail ragged and fretting her way into the start of a headache. Keep moving forward, she thinks, and deal with the crash--during their tour, she guesses. This is not how her therapist probably meant for her to use deliberate restructuring, but she shoves that thought and all its associated consequences all the way out of her mind, and texts Scott a picture of a tutu lying on her bedspread.

Her phone buzzes less than thirty seconds later, and she’s expecting--his maple leaf jersey, maybe. Instead it’s a word message. _Can we talk?_

She chews at her other thumbnail, staring at the message until the screen goes blank and after, until it lights up and buzzes and makes her jump. She picks up the call but doesn’t say anything, holding her breath.

“Tessa,” Scott says. “You there?”

“Yes.”

“I--do you have a minute?”

Tessa starts on her index fingernail. “Yes.”

“I think we should stop,” Scott says. He keeps talking, but Tessa can’t hear him for the roaring in her ears. “--you know what I mean?”

Tessa has no idea how long she’s been checked out. “Yes, of course. I think--yes. We should. Forget it. Forget all of it.”

“What? Wait--”

“It never happened,” Tessa says sharply, and disconnects. She buys a ticket to Paris and packs a bag.

++

She sends him a text from a cafe, just like the ones they used to send, uses more emojis than words. The next day he sends her a short little video of his new haircut, and she makes the appropriate compliments in return. 

It never happened, she repeats in her head, ad nauseum. It never happened. When she wakes up, at every meal, running along the river, on the long plane ride home. Every night before she goes to bed. It never happened. Every painfully platonic text and social media exchange between them. None of it ever happened.

If there’s one thing she can do, it’s compartmentalize. She’s so good at it they had to carve her leg up.

++

By the time Alma calls her, she’s convinced herself it never happened. She remembers it like a weird dream, or one of those conspiracy theories about them on twitter. She doesn’t have to do the mantras anymore; they’ve had several phone conversations with only a handful of awkward pauses.

Alma is the one who tells her. Well. Danny spills the beans, but Alma is the one to ask-without-asking, would she go over and make sure he’s not---. She doesn’t finish, but Tessa remembers. Scott after Sochi, uncertain and confused and not talking to her about it, that was for damn sure. But that was also four years ago. Before messy sex and messier conversations and Tessa taking a turn on pile-driving her life straight into the ground.

So she shows up at his mother’s house with two six packs and a brown paper bag full of grease and salt to smooth the awkwardness and uses her toe to rattle the screen door in its frame until he opens the door and smiles at her. “I sent out a mental SOS for burgers,” he says, squeaking the door open and relieving her of the beer. “And here you are, eh? A Christmas miracle in July.”

“Yes,” Tessa agrees dryly, “I truly am a wise king. Take this myrrh.” 

“Gold,” Scott informs her, dutifully taking the bag out of her hands as well “I definitely remember something about gold.”

“I already got you gold. Two of them.”

He swoops in close to kiss her cheek, then hesitates and withdraws before he makes contact, coughing awkwardly. “I recorded the Bachelorette.”

She trails him through familiar rooms: the foyer, the kitchen. She _tsks_ and he rolls his eyes, but he gets out plates and glasses and stacks everything on his arms before checking to make sure she’s appropriately impressed. “Yes,” she says indulgently, in the same tone she uses with very very young fans, “very good. You’ll make an excellent waiter one day.”

He winks. 

They end up on the couch, her feet tucked up under her and her head leaned on the arm of the sofa while he sprawls out next to her, taking up far too much room. “You’re manspreading,” she tells him, and he sticks a fry into her mouth. 

“I bet hockey players get to eat steak every night,” he muses, sliding over to give her room to stretch out her legs. “I bet they don’t sleep with electrodes stuck to their nipples.”

Tessa eats another fry and watches two nearly identical dark haired men argue about a girl on the television, trying to hide how her heart skyrocketed when he said _hockey player_. “I told you a hundred times, no one wanted you to put them on your nipples.”

Scott ignores her. “I guess they don’t get to dance with pretty girls as much, though.”

Tessa narrows her eyes.

“Amazingly talented,” Scott corrects swiftly. “Incredible athletes in their own right.”

“Mm.” Appeased, and feeling a little bit bold, a little bit punchdrunk on salt and carbs and the grease on her lips, she slides over and snuggles into his side. This is what they do, it’s not weird or new. “Patch said he sent you new Billie pics?”

He stiffens slightly against her, but relaxes quickly, his arm wrapping around her and pulling her closer. “Yeah, on ice and everything. On my phone.”

She holds up a palm. “Gimme.”

“Can’t, butt pocket.”

She looks up at him, incredulous. “You’re sitting right on it? Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

His jaw flexes and she doesn’t understand why. “No. I’d rather sit like--I’m not uncomfortable.”

“I’ll get it,” she decides, and sticks a hand under him.

He levitates six inches off the couch and nearly faceplants onto the floor. “ _Tessa_!” He’s half on the couch, half off, limbs akimbo. She reaches over him and plucks his phone from his back pocket, tapping out his passcode and accessing his photos with a few flicks of her fingertips. “Fondler,” he grumbles, clambering back up onto the sofa so he can look at the pictures with her. 

She ignores him. It was a stupid move, and she’s adding it to her list of things that never happened.

He pokes her cheek. They flick through the new kiddo pictures, coo in the appropriate places. Drink too much beer and send Marie and Patch a selfie of themselves crosseyed and smiling. Scott pretends to care about the Bachelorette for the duration of the episode before stealing the remote and switching to curling; Tessa allows it as long as he hand feeds her french fries. (And every so often, his fingers brushing her lips, the jolt of her tongue and teeth on his skin. More things that aren’t happening).

“I want to talk,” he says, during a commercial break.

Tessa blinks. The fries all gone and she’d been half-dozing, she has no idea what he’s talking about. “What?”

“I--can you sit up for a second?.”

“Oh.” She sits up, feeling suddenly sick. “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s not--”

“Sorry,” she repeats, fumbling for one of her flats fallen to the floor. She shoves it back on her foot and stands, looking for her purse. “I should… it’s late.”

“Tess,” he protests, reaching for her elbow--reaching for a skating grip. Muscle memory will damn us both, she thinks, and twists away easily.

She grabs her bag up off the coffee table and fishes out her keys. “I should get going.”

He’s frowning. “It’s late.”

“That’s why I should get going.”

He stands, arms crossed across his chest. “You’ve been drinking.”

Her eyes narrow. “Is that so, officer?”

“You can sass me all you want,” he says, and his accent is strong like this, late at night and upset with her. “But you’re not driving home tonight.”

Tessa weighs her options, his eyes not breaking from hers. “You can’t stop me,” she says, and it’s not what she meant to say but it sends a bolt down her spine, a jolt through her belly. 

His jawline spasms; when he speaks his voice is hard and clipped in a way she hasn’t heard from him in years. “I’ll call you a cab.”

“To Ilderton? We’ll be eighty by the time it gets here.”

“I’ll put on _Jeopardy_ ,” he says, but his tone is nowhere near joking. 

Tessa should--she shouldn’t be arguing it. Any other night she’d sleep it off in the spare room or on the couch, fall asleep listening to Scott yell at the curling match, let him buy her coffee in the morning. She should back down, apologize, brush her teeth with her finger in the bathroom and ask Scott for one of his shirts to sleep in. She feels like she might be asleep already. Asleep and dreaming, it’s the only explanation for hearing herself say: “I’m leaving and you can’t stop me.”

“I will,” he says, and it’s low and dark and a promise. They stare at each other, breathing hard for all they’re standing still.

Then she darts for the door. 

Scott vaults over the sofa. Tessa tries to change direction but he catches her around the waist with one harm and hauls her up into the air. For a second, she arches, adjusting the lines of her body. Muscle memory again. She thrashes, but her distraction costs her. He’s got both arms around her now, holding her tight. “Scott! Put me down!”

He grunts with the effort of holding her. “Not until---” she kicks out and he wobbles. “--you promise--”

She wrenches her body sideways, hard. He overbalances, tumbling to the floor and taking her with them. They ricochet off the edge of the couch; Tessa narrowly misses banging her head into the corner of the coffee table. She yelps, Scott curses. They lie sprawled on each other, panting. “Ow,” she says, delayed and grumpy. She maybe not entirely accidentally kicks him in the shin and she starts to scramble to her feet.

“No,” he objects, and grabs her around the waist again, hauling her back to the floor. “You’re not going anywhere until you give me some answers.”

She pursues her lips and glares at the ceiling.

“Seriously? I thought I was the immature one in this partnership.”

Tessa glares at the ceiling more determinedly.

“Fine.” Scott slings a heavy leg over her hips and stares at the wall over her ear. “I can do this all night. You’re the one with the tiny bladder.”

“It’s not tiny,” Tessa snaps, falling back into the familiar argument. “I’m well hydrated, there’s a difference.”

“All I hear is that you’ll have to pee before me.”

“All I hear is that you’re willing to get peed on,” she snipes back, and then huffs. “Nevermind, I’m not talking to you.”

“Then stop talking to me,” Scott snaps, his teeth nearly grinding together in his frustration. 

She lasts nearly two minutes of sustained rage before her mind starts to wander. Enough time their breathing has eased, another minute before she realises: “You recorded the Bachelorette. But how did you know I’d be over?”

“Oh, are you talking to me again?”

She closes her eyes and curses her own stupidity. “Danny said you turned down a family trip. Your mother hinted I should check on you.”

“I’m pretty proud of it myself. Who says I can’t plot?”

She sighs, and turns her head to meet his eyes. “You were worried about me.”

He shrugs, his shoulder bumping awkwardly on the ground and making his neck scrunch up. “Guilty.”

Tessa sighs again. She relaxes in his grip, wiggles around so her head is resting on his chest, their legs still tangled up. “Sorry.”

Hesitantly, he releases his arm from around her waist, waiting to see if she’ll bolt again. When she doesn’t the tension eases; he rubs gently at her back. “Talk to me?”

Tessa grumbles unintelligibly. He pokes her ribs and she nips at his shoulderblade in retaliation. Then she flinches, remembering they don’t Do That Now. “I don’t know. I’ve just been feeling…” she trails off, sighs. “It’s my own issue. I’ll handle it.”

Scott makes a displeased noise. His arm goes back around her waist. “I can do this all night.”

Her anger flares up again. “You can’t make me talk about this with you. You can’t make me stay here, you--.”

“We can talk about anything,” he insists. “Let me help--”

“It’s about you,” she snarls, vicious and pointed. “You don’t want me, why would I want to hear all the reasons why? It happened! It all happened and I _messed it up_.” She claps a hand over her mouth, immediately regretful and ashamed, and turns away.

Scott is shocked into silence for only a few seconds. “Tessa,” he tries to start, and she makes a sharp choked up noise in her throat to quiet him. 

Then she takes a deep shuddering breath and smoothes her face. Turns and fixes her gaze above Scott’s left shoulder, one of the family pictures hanging on the wall. “I think I’m going to hit the hay. Danny’s old room still okay for me to use?”

Scott’s eyes are still wide, big and surprised and trying to catch her own, but they still flick upwards in a quick expression of disbelief. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

Tessa edges towards the hallway. “See you in the morning,” she says, and flees. She’s half expecting Scott to chase her again, but he stays in place, and she closes the door behind her. 

 

Scott only lets her have two minutes of sitting slumped on the bed with her head in her hands, stomach churning and heart thundering, before he raps on the door with his knuckles. “T?”

“Don’t come in!” she responds sharply, scrubbing at her eyes. 

“We need to talk about this.” There’s a thump, like Scott is leaning his forehead on the door. “I need to tell you some--uh. Stuff,” he finishes lamely. _Stuff_. Probably that he’s flattered to confirm the long standing belief of everyone who’s ever met either of them that she’s been head over heels stupid in love with him since she was six years old, but he just doesn’t feel the same way about her.

Tessa’s been to Sydney; it’s not so bad. She’ll send her mother a postcard after a few years so she doesn’t worry.

Scott knocks again, more insistently at her lack of response. “C’mon, let me in.”

Tessa’s darting desperate eyes fall on the window.

Scott rattles the doorknob--it’s unlocked, but even in his insistence he’s reluctant to barge in before she invites him. “Tessa! We need to talk about this!”

Who says you can’t be a wayward youth in your late twenties, she muses, and slings a leg over the windowsill. 

++

Tessa is woken up by her phone vibrating with an incoming call underneath her pillow. She rolls over and waits for it to stop. Then she yelps, flailing with the sheets and falling out of bed onto the floor as someone starts hammering on her door. “Tessa!” A male voice bellows.

It’s Scott. She groans, annoyed but not surprised, and levers herself upright, stumbling towards the door. She yanks the screen door open and glowers at him. “You’re going to get the cops called.”

Scott looks angrier than she’s ever seen him, including the time she told him about the boy who groped her at a party after she said no. Including the time he almost put his fist through a hotel wall after the worst _Carmen_ they ever skated. She hasn’t seen him like this in years--it’s jarring, to see that Scott when she’s gotten so used to Current Scott, who is still explosive and emotive and wears his big heart on his sleeve for everyone to see, but knows to take a breath and a beat and use expressive language to articulate his feelings. “Let me tell you about the fucking cops,” he snarls, before she can say anything else.

She opens her mouth and he crowds the doorway, looming. His jaw is flexing so hard she can hear his teeth grinding. 

“Let’s talk about all the times I almost called them this morning,” he continues, his voice crackling with the force of his emotion. “One: when I went into Danny’s bedroom this morning and realized that the window was open and the bed wasn’t slept in.”

Tessa feels the first flush of guilt. She’d thought he’d been seconds away from bursting in, but of course he didn’t. Of course he gave her the space he thought she was wordlessly asking for.

“Two,” he continues, “when I went outside and found your car still parked in the driveway with no one inside.”

“You would have heard it,” Tessa argues, and then flushes. “Um, I mean. I took an uber.”

Scott is looking at the ceiling and counting to ten silently, his lips mouthing the numbers. During practice when he gets frustrated with his twizzles she rubs his back while he counts, but Tessa thinks it’s probably for the best that she lets him handle this mindfulness moment solo. 

“Three,” he finishes after a long long pause. “When I got here, called you over and over, and you didn’t answer.”

“I was sleeping,” Tessa mutters, casting a quick glower at the slowly rising sun. “It’s not even seven thirty yet.”

“ _Oh_!” Scott explodes, his hands flying up into the air. “Oh is it _not yet seven thirty_?? Is it _too early_ \--”

Tessa reaches out, grabbing him by the sleeve, and yanks him inside. “Stop shouting,” she hisses, “you’ll wake the neighbors.”

“Oh, well if _I’ll wake the fucking neighbors_ \--”

She pulls him halfway into the kitchen, the front door shut behind them, before he frees himself from her group, arms pinwheeling as the motion knocks him off balance. She ducks. “Scott!”

“I thought you’d died,” Scott laments, his eyes wild and his hair wilder. “I thought you’d _died_.”

Tessa can’t help the eyeroll. “Scott, for god’s sake.” How some people still think she’s the dramatic one, she’ll never know.

Scott scowls, but he takes a deep breath and stops gesticulating in way that makes her consider diving for cover. “I--I was worried. Sincerely.”

She touches his arm gently. “I know. I shouldn’t have done that, I just… “

He turns his hand and catches her by the wrist, careful and deliberate. “You panicked.”

She’s sharply reminded by the particulars, flinching away from his touch. “Yes,” she edges. “If we could--”

“Talk,” Scott suggests. “I made breakfast.”

Tessa blinks. They both look at his completely empty hands. 

“I might have left it in Danny’s room,” Scott admits. “But it was good, trust me. Waffles and hashbrowns.”

“And maple syrup?”

He grins. “The good stuff.”

His sheepish admission doesn’t break the ice, exactly, but it strikes a solid blow. “Eggs,” she offers, and after a few seconds where he searches her face for something, he nods.

“Okay. Eggs.”

++

She’s nervous. She’s admitted too much, over and over again; she’s let slip too many of her secrets, held close and buried for years. For decades. Her hands shake around the handle of the pot, crack the eggs too hard against its aluminum rim. The yolk spills across her fingers as she yelps, some dripping off onto the burner before she can wipe it away with a dishtowel. 

The kitchen starts to smell like burnt eggs. 

“Let me,” she hears Scott say, and then feels his body heat against her back as he carefully takes the pot away from her. “Twenty plus years, I know how to make them the way you like.”

If that isn’t the entirety of her problem, she thinks glumly, but she steps sideways and lets him take over. 

“We do need to talk,” he reminds, her, and tosses each egg up in the air before cracking it open against the edge of the counter. “You’re not getting out of it.”

She leans her hip against the wall and watches him. The egg spinning in the air and the sound of it hitting his waiting palm. “Remember the first time they told us we were going to therapy?”

He grins. “I objected.”

“You threw your skates across the locker room.”

“The Moir charm,” he protests.

“Moir tantrum,” Tessa mutters. She watches the eggs cook to avoid his face. “You’re not asking any questions.”

“You’ll be less grumpy on a full stomach.” He snaps his fingers. “I’ll make up that gross morning drink you like.”

“It’s _water_ ,” Tessa reminds him, rolling her eyes, but she watches him overexaggerate cutting the lemon, pluck a single mint leaf from the bunch in the fridge crisper drawer. Scott with messy morning hair and tired eyes in her kitchen, making her breakfast, knowing her routines inside and out. She presses a palm flat against her sternum and makes an effort to swallow down the nausea.

Scott doesn’t miss it. He reaches out for her, stops, hesitates. “Is it okay…?”

She did this, she thinks mournfully. Broke their effortless familiarity, a connection the envy of Canada. Her breathing hitches, and he closes the distance, drawing her into a hug that’s loose until she wraps her arms around his waist and clings, hiding her face in his chest.

“Hey,” she hears him saw into her hair, kissing gently at her temple and rubbing big soothing circles on her back. “It’s okay.”

“S’not,” she mumbles, and surreptitiously wipes her nose on his shirt. She sighs and makes herself step back and half-turn away, counting to ten and thinking about a balloon slowly filling up. Deflating. Rinse and repeat.

Scott leaves her be, but not forever. “Maybe it can’t wait for eggs,” he says softly, and she opens her eyes with a sigh.

“Maybe not,” she acknowledges, and straightens her spine. “I’m sorry I left last night.”

He nods, slowly. “Why did you?”

She bites her lip, but there’s nowhere left to run, really. Time to face the music. “I got scared.”

Scott doesn’t break eye contact. “Don’t go coward on me now, T-Bone.”

“I didn’t want to talk about how I feel about you,” Tessa says in a rush, and chews on her lower lip. “So I ran away and hid. And I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“I messed up too,” he says, and this time when his jaw flexes it’s frustration with himself instead of her. It shouldn’t hurt her more, but it does. 

“No. No, it was me, I pushed, I avoided, I--”

“I ended things because I want it to be real,” Scot says, all in a rush. He scratches at the back of his head. “That--in the bathroom, it was. I couldn’t pretend we were other people when all I want is you. So, uh. I think we should date for real?”

Tessa stares at him, mouth hanging open. 

He honest to god shuffles his feet. “And uh. You know. Girlfriend, boyfriend. You’ve already met my parents, obviously, but there’s some extended Moirs who make their own beer in Nova Scotia we could visit for the ‘meet the family’ thing. Keep it quiet for a while, maybe go back on Ellen to announce it? At the same time as another book? I know you like multitasking during press--”

Tessa is still utterly flabbergasted, and it’s clearly ramping up Scott’s nervous ramblings.

“Danny got grandma’s ring, you know, but I was thinking it’s not your style anyway.”

Tessa makes a strangled noise.

Scott looks like he’s about to stroke out, his words tripping over each other as they spill out. “Danny could give you away--I mean, if your mom--not that you’re going to be _given_ because we’re not exchanging property--”

Tessa’s strangled noise increases in pitch and intensity.

“Marie is a good name for a girl--”

“Oh my god,” Tessa finally manages, “ _stop talking_.” She slaps a palm over his mouth and they both stare at each other, breathing hard.

“Thanks,” Scott says after a few seconds, his voice muffled behind her hand. When he licks his lips nervously his tongue brushes her skin. “I really couldn’t stop myself there.”

Tessa uncovers his mouth. “I need a drink.” Scott’s eyes narrow. “Coffee,” she amends hastily. “I need coffee. And for you to never talk about babies inside me ever again.”

“I’ve been practicing a speech for weeks,” Scott mourns, while she fumbles through the motions of getting the machine going. “And then I just word vomited everywhere. Before coffee.”

Tessa makes a vague hum of agreement, her brain looping through the consequences of what he’s said. What he apparently wants from her. Rings and baby names and wedding logistics and her brain refuses to process it. 

“--essa,” Scott is saying. “Hey, you with me?”

Tessa takes down two mugs from a cupboard. “What? Yeah, of course.”

Scott unplugs the coffee machine. “You didn’t add water.”

“Oh.”

He takes the mugs from her. “Maybe we should talk while… sitting down.”

She jerks the mug back and fills it with water from the tap. “And maybe you should stop bullshitting me.”

It’s Scott’s turn to blink. “What?”

“You don’t have to--to make it some kind of joke. I get it, okay? I won’t make a big deal out of it. I need a little time, but I still... We can still make this work. I’ll get over it.” She tries for a smile. “Our partnership, our friendship: that’s what’s important.”

Scott gapes at her. At least they’re taking terms being struck mute with astonishment. 

Tessa chugs her water nervously. “So, that’s… I’ll see you later?” She starts to edge past him towards the front door.

He catches her elbow. “This is your house,” he reminds her.

“Mi casa es…” she waves a vague hand. “So. Goodbye?”

“No.” He leads her to the sofa and sits her down, running his hands through his hair and pacing in front of her. “I just--I just told you I’ve planned our wedding and picked out baby names and you think it’s all a big prank? You think that’s something I would joke about?”

“I don’t always understand your jokes,” Tessa mutters mulishly. “What’s funny about insurance commercials?”

“It’s a tiny dragon!! What does he know about deductibles?”

“It’s a _gecko_ \--”

He points a finger at her. “Stop trying to distract me. We’re talking about this.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Fine. Talk.”

He takes a deep breath. “I, uh. We’ve known each other a long time,” he starts.

Tessa rolls her eyes. “This is the speech you practiced?”

He jabs his finger at her again. “Those who flee out windows can’t throw stones.”

“Those who flee out windows can’t throw stones,” she says, pitched three octaves higher than her natural voice.

Scott sputters, then takes a deep breath. “Stop trying to derail me.” 

“Stop talking about _our_ babies!”

“I knew the baby thing would throw you. That’s like… years down the line. Years.”

“Years,” she parrots dumbly. He’s thought about them together--in the future. Years in the future.

“I think you’re fixating--”

“Babies!”

He touches her cheek. “Breathe with me.”

She shoves him away. “No! Babies!”

Scott rubs his hand over his face. “It’s not--yeah, I want kids. Eventually, maybe. But it’s not. I want _you_. Kids, marriage, that’s all…” he waves a hand. “Getting ahead of ourselves.”

Like having sex in a public restroom before they even kiss, Tessa thinks. 

“It’s not complicated,” he muses. “We made it complicated, but it’s not.” He smiles at her suddenly, warm and familiar and achingly hopeful. “It’s simple as this, Tess. I love you. All the ways we tell everyone and all the other ways too. Do you love me?”

Tessa’s heart is thundering so loud she doesn’t know how he can’t hear it. She looks at him for so long without blinking her eyes start to burn with tears. “It never happened.”

“But it could have. It _can_. We can stop pretending and start being real.”

“Babies,” she repeats.

“Tessa,” he says softly, and kneels in front of her, hands fluttering hesitantly over her knees before bracing on the sofa cushion instead. “I love that big brain you’ve got, but you gotta turn it off, just for one second. Don’t make plans, don’t problem solve. Forget about my rambling brain and baby names. Take a deep breath.” They inhale at the same time, hold for a count of six. Exhale. “Answer one question,” he whispers, “just one. Do you--”

“Yes,” Tessa says, all in a rush. “Yes. I have feelings for you, I want to be with you, but--”

She’s cut off by his whoop of joy, her arms around his neck as he swoops her up and spins her around. He’s smiling bigger than he did in Vancouver. His joy is infectious; she smiles so wide her cheeks hurt. “No buts. First dates, then buts.”

She wipes at her eyes. “And you--you too?”

“Yes,” he whispers into her neck, clutching her tighter. “ _Yes_.” He lowers her to the ground but keeps her close, his forehead resting on hers, her feet between his. She touches his cheek with her fingers. “I’m going to take you out,” he murmurs, kissing each of her eyelids, ducking to nip under her jaw. “Under our real names. We’re gonna break instagram over lobster topped steak, or that weird steamed fish you like--”

“It’s not weird, it’s _salmon_ \--” He kisses the tip of her nose and she laughs, big and bright and loud and despite the whirring of her nervous scared brain. There isn’t anybody on earth that makes her as happy as Scott Moir. She tugs him down by his hair. “Babies are far in the future. Far. If ever.”

“All I want,” he says, smoothing her hair out of her face, “is you. We have forever to work out the rest, and we’ll figure it out together. One step at a time. Partners. Give me a chance; I’m not going to mess this up. It’s too important. You’re too important.”

“This is happening,” she decides. He’s right. One step at a time, just like they’ve done everything else. They haven’t failed the long game yet. “Kiss me.”

“I’m going to marry you, Tessa Virtue,” he promises, and closes the distance between them.

“Birth control forever,” she mumbles against his lips, and feels the curve of his smile against her own.

**Author's Note:**

> chey helped me a lot with the ending but i think it might still be too rushed?
> 
> let me know what you think and I'm on tumblr @ konahau


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